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Friday, March 2, 2012

Green Eggs

I can’t believe that it is already Friday. Don’t get me wrong, I love the weekends, it’s
just that time seems to fly by. As we
get older, days turn quickly into weeks, months, and years. Now, when I was a kid, the summer felt like
it lasted an eternity. I can still smell
the flowers on the ‘bee’ bushes….not really sure what they were called, but they
attracted hundreds of bees. A jar and
lid was all we needed to keep ourselves busy in a game of catch and release.

On my way home from the office, I pick up another cable box so that the TV
in the basement can come to life. Kyle
had his girlfriend Gia over this afternoon in the newly finished basement. It is time to start looking at garage sales
and craigslist for air hockey, ping pong, etc.
Someone at work said that as the boys get older they will use the
basement rec room less and less. As I
get older, so do they.

This day in history “On this day in 1904, Theodor Geisel, better known to the world
as Dr. Seuss, the author and illustrator of such beloved children's books as
"The Cat in the Hat" and "Green Eggs and Ham," is born in
Springfield, Massachusetts.
Geisel, who used his middle name (which was also his mother's maiden name) as
his pen name, wrote 48 books--including some for adults--that have sold well
over 200 million copies and been translated into multiple languages. Dr. Seuss
books are known for their whimsical rhymes and quirky characters, which have
names like the Lorax and the Sneetches and live in places like Hooterville.

Geisel,
who was born on March 2, 1904, in Springfield, Massachusetts, graduated from
Dartmouth College, where he was editor of the school's humor magazine, and
studied at Oxford University. There he met Helen Palmer, his first wife and the
person who encouraged him to become a professional illustrator. Back in
America, Geisel worked as a cartoonist for a variety of magazines and in
advertising.”

I remember having Dr. Seuss books in the house. All the usual suspects, the cat in the hat,
green eggs and ham, hop on pop, 1 fish 2 fish red fish blue fish, and fox in
socks. There were probably others, but
those are the ones that stick. Not only
did these books teach me to read, they also entertained, and are so classic,
that we have even read them to our children.

The cat in the hat
(brought to life by Mike Meyers....a classic)

Hop on Pop ( a perennial
favorite growing up and jumping on my Dad's rather large belly)

Green eggs and ham, I
like green eggs and ham, Sam I am

I like eggs. No, I love eggs. Given a choice, and until I raised my
cholesterol high enough to cut back, I would eat eggs every day of my
life. Now, I have one whole egg and some
egg whites or a ‘real egg’ and some eggbeaters.
Bacon, Sausage, Ham, Rye toast drenched in butter…..ahh the good old
days.

Did you know that there
is a breed of domesticated chicken that lays eggs other than the usual Brown or
White. Once the chicken has started laying, they will continue to lay an egg of
the same coloration.

Easter Eggs if you will,
Blue, Green, Pink, etc. So you see the egg itself does not have to
be dyed green, to have a green egg.

In the Chilean region of Araucanìa, characterized by the high number of
indigenous Mapuche,
farmers’ market stalls are laden with the kaleidoscopic displays of eggs
colored cobalt blue, pale green, and everything in between. Temuco is
particularly famous for its blue eggs. While most farm-raised chickens lay the
occasional blue egg, Temuco chickens always lay blue or green eggs, a genetic
trait that turns the bird’s white eggs blue and its brown eggs green. In Chile,
this particular chicken breed is called the Araucana, the name that conquering Spaniards
gave the Mapuche people, as well as to the region’s chickens, ultimately. It is
not clear whether the Araucana
chicken is an indigenous breed or if it is a descendant of the
chickens first brought from Spain by the conquistadores.

I really want to raise
chickens so that we can have a fresh supply of eggs. Sue thinks I am crazy. She might be right.

Since most folks are
used to seeing White Eggs, the trait has been basically bred out of the
commercial flocks.

Now onto the Ham part of
the meal...ham comes from pigs, which at one point had the bad wrap as being
unhealthy and fatty food. As a meat, it was to be eaten sparingly. Well, whether
thru genetic engineering, or selective breeding, the pig is now considered the
"other white meat" and is high in protein and actually has less FAT
than beef, or chicken ( skin on). I am not saying that you should go out and
eat a half a pound of bacon....Ham is actually leaner and healthier than eating
bacon or sausage

There, you have. This
guy Dr. Seuss was trying to tell us something....Eat Green Eggs and Ham.....

1 comment:

Our chickens started laying again a few weeks ago after taking about 5 weeks off - their winter vacation. Did you happen to notice if the blue/green egg layers are full size birds? Not sure I'd want the complications that come with adding to a flock, but they sure sound fun!